The scythe flew through the air in a wide arc, its edge cutting cleanly through space. Massiah had already unstrapped Dahlia's hammer, the obsidian head colliding with the scythe in a crash that shook his bones. Though he held firm, even as Balalaika staggered back, her eyes burning with delight.
"I see... you haven't dulled," she said with a smile. Then she lunged again. "But that girl, mine!"
Massiah didn't answer.
She swung for his throat, the blade coming toward his neck, but he didn't dodge. Instead, he swung the hammer at her skull, his gaze never leaving her.
Her palm met the hammer head mid-swing, bone crunching as her fingers bent back. A scream tore from her throat, but the smile never left.
Massiah did the same, lifting his arm just in time for the scythe's blade to plunge through his forearm.
"Ty menya nenavish', da?" she said through grit teeth. "Hotya eto ya sdelala iz tebya sil'nogo... sposobnogo."
"She wonders if you hate her," the translator echoed from the side. "Even though she's the one who made you strong. Everything she did to you made you what you are. Made you worthy of the exterminators."
Massiah ripped the hammer back, blood spraying. She mirrored the motion, and they came together again, close now, staring into each other's eyes.
"Mutashka rat. Do you remember?" she said. "No one want you. Except me. I saved you. I made you. I own you."
Massiah's jaw clenched, teeth gnashing together.
"You don't own me," Massiah said, "not anymore."
Balalaika threw her head back and laughed, the sound unhinged. A single tear ran down her cheek as she screamed through her grin.
"A teper', kogda tebe stalo plokho? Dumaesh', proshcheniye pridet? Dumaesh', mechtushki utyanutsya?" Balalaika laughed. "Ya sdelala tebia po moemu obrazu, Mass. Ty eto ya."
"And now that you've stopped... do you think you're forgiven? Do you think the nightmares will stop?" The translator spoke, his eyes fixed on the ground. "She made you in her image. You are her."
"Da, ty i est' eto, dazhe s etimi unichtozhitelyami, tvoya kosa vse ravno nakhodyt myaso. Eto tvoye prednaznachenie, edinstvennoe, v chem ty khorosh!" Balalaika said again. "Ubiystvo, ubiystvo, ubiystvo. Plachesh' ty za eto ili net, ty eto delayesh! Potomu chto ty ne znaesh nichego, krome etogo!"
"Even with the exterminators, your blade still meets flesh, sinew, hide, bone." the translator said. "Because it's your calling, the only thing you're good at—murder, murder, murder. Paid or not, it's all you know."
"You don't know anything about me," Massiah said, swinging his body, his leg slammed into Balalaika's chest, sending her skidding backward.
Her heels scraped the ground, but she held her stance, still smiling. "Do you remember the first person you killed?"
Massiah froze. The memory hit like a lucid dream—sharp, vivid. A woman with dark hair sprawled in the sand. A blade in his hand. Balalaika's grip firm on his shoulder.
"You killed your mother," Balalaika said, stepping forward. "A good day. You were freed, cut loose from your chains, from a woman who never saw you. And then you fell into my hands. I shape you like clay."
"Stop."
"Until that exterminator woman came and took you away." She sighed, almost wistful. "I cried, not because I cared. But because you, Mass... were my finest work. My greatest creation. Greater than me."
"I'm not you," Massiah growled, flinging out his hand. "From the moment I left, I haven't killed again. And I never will."
"Is that so?" Balalaika said, snapping her fingers. In the next instant, the two bodyguards behind Dahlia seized her, one pressing a trigger to her head.
"Dva putyoshki u tebya, Massiah-malchik. Vernush'sya ko mne, zaberi svoyo mesto v etom gorodishke, stan' Vestnik, kotorogo ya sozdala. Ili pozvol' etoy devochke stat' toboy."
"She says you have two options," the translator began. "Either join her—abandon your past life and reclaim your place by her side—or give her the girl. Let her take your place instead."
Massiah looked back at Dahlia. She met his gaze.
"Or," Balalaika added, tossing the scythe at his feet, "you can kill me. Prove you're still the thing I made, my harbinger."
She snapped her fingers again. The bodyguard pulled back the safety with a sharp click. Balalaika stepped forward, hands loose at her sides. "If you kill me, she walks free, you go too."
Massiah's eyes stayed locked on Dahlia. She slowly shook her head.
Then he turned to the scythe.
Its black sheen reflected his face, his trembling hands, his wide, uncertain eyes. He bent down, fingers curling around the long handle.
Dahlia's breath caught as he bent, picked up the scythe, wrapped his fingers around its shaft. He brought the blade up—slowly, silently—until it hovered just behind Balalaika's neck.
Dahlia watched.
Would anything truly be solved here? That question pulsed in her head, over and over.
There was still so much she didn't know about him. So much he buried deep: the trauma from his childhood, what he felt when Quem died, even what he felt now.
Massiah probably hated Balalaika, maybe more than anyone else. Even if he didn't want to kill anymore, maybe she was the exception. She was the one who made him this way. Denying him that vengeance almost felt wrong.
She understood it. She understood the ache to make someone pay. She felt it too, for Quem, for Ansel, for all the things torn away from her.
But if Massiah killed Balalaika... would anything change?
Would it bring him peace? Or just add another tally to his burden?
Her eyes dropped to his hands.
They trembled.
They had trembled earlier, in the restaurant as well, for a moment. And now again, wrapped around that black scythe. He wasn't going to enjoy this. He knew he'd regret it.
But still, he held on.
Was it vengeance? guilt? atonement? an attempt to put to rest the ghosts she'd made him carry?
She couldn't tell.
All she knew was this:
Killing her wouldn't save Massiah.
It wouldn't make him better.
It wouldn't make him whole.
"Do it," Balalaika hissed. "PROVE ME RIGHT!"
Massiah's arms pulled back. The blade reeled, blade coming down towards her neck.
But before it could cut—
Dahlia ran.
The trigger clicked. A bullet tore into the wall—too late. She was already moving, feet pounding the floor.
Just before the blade struck Balalaika's neck, Dahlia's hand slammed into the scythe. Her fingers clenched the edge, blood sprayed. Two of them hit the ground with a wet slap.
"Fuck!" she screamed, wrenching the weapon from Massiah's grip and throwing it aside.
"Dahlia!" Massiah turned to her, panic flashing across his face. "Why... why would you—"
His eyes dropped to her mangled hand. "Why would you do that?!"
"Because you're not an assassin. Or a soldier. Or a monster." Her voice shook, blood streaming from her hand. "You're Massiah Devereaux. An exterminator for Dead End Solutions. And you're the idol that I and Ansel admired for years!"
"But—"
"You care about people you've never even met, even though you pretend you don't!" Dahlia shouted. "You care about your teammates, you get angry for our sakes!"
"But..."
"You hate killing. I know that. You regret every second of it. You wish you could take it all back." She reached out, smearing blood across his overcoat. "She doesn't deserve your blade. And she sure as hell doesn't deserve your pain."
Massiah brought a trembling hand to his head, "You hurt yourself just to stop me from feeling guilty? That's insane."
"Of course it is," Dahlia said, biting her lip through the pain. "That's what partners do, right?"
She grinned, wincing. "Also... I kinda wanted matching fingers with you. But fucking butterflies, this hurts like hell."
Massiah gave a breath of disbelief, kneeling beside her. He tugged off the strap from his gas mask and carefully tied it around her bleeding hand, tightening it around the stumps.
Dahlia howled. "Holy shit, that hurts!"
"We could've reattached them," he said, "if we had a medic nearby. I'm... I'm sorry."
"Nope. I wanted to match." She laughed, "Plus, now you don't have one more burden hanging over your head. Win-win."
"You're unbelievable."
Balalaika clicked her tongue, reaching into her pocket. A pistol slid into her grip.
She barely had time to raise it before Massiah was already beside her, eyes locked with hers, the scythe drawn across her throat. A thin line of blood trickled down.
"I can't undo what I've done," Massiah said. "I can't bring them back, and I can't ask for forgiveness. That's my burden. I'll carry it to the grave, their names, their voices, their faces."
He pulled the blade in tighter.
"But if you ever hurt Dahlia, or anyone I care about—today, tomorrow, any day—I swear, I'll kill you."
Balalaika let the gun fall to the floor, a smile appearing once again.
"I take it back. You're sharper than you've ever been." As the scythe left her neck, she turned and walked toward one of the flower beds. "U tebya est tot, kto zabotushka o tebe delayet. Net sily bol'she etoy, nikogda. Khot' i potrachenka naprasno na tebya."
"She says you have someone who cares for you," the translator said, voice low. "That you should be grateful, there's no greater strength than that... even if it's wasted on you."
Massiah returned to Dahlia, kneeling to grab her injured hand, retying the strap carefully.
Behind them, Balalaika whispered, "But how long until she dies? How long until the world sees you unleashed again? How long until my Harbinger is reborn?"
They stepped through the door.
Balalaika laughed.
"I can't wait."
And then they were back on the streets of Alast.
The piss soaked, dust choked haven of overgrown weeds, crumbling concrete, and scattered debris. No one had come out. Maybe they were still scared of Massiah. Maybe it was the gunshot.
Massiah walked beside Dahlia, eyes turning occasionally to her injured hand. One of his hands remained buried in his coat pocket, but the other kept hovering awkwardly as if he tried to say something but didn't know how to.
"You seem more relaxed now," Dahlia said. Her hammer bounced softly against her back, same for Massiah with his scythe. "Feeling better?"
Massiah shook his head. "No."
"Oh." She looked forward again.
"I probably won't. But... thank you." His eyes met hers. "I was one step away from the abyss. Probably. You dragged me back."
Dahlia smiled, brushing her hair from her face. "Just doing what any partner would. And hey, losing two fingers for that? Not the worst deal. Plus, I didn't even flinch that badly. I just might be the strongest exterminator alive."
Massiah smirked. "You definitely flinched. And let's be real, there's still a long line ahead of you. There's me, a few grade threes, Vladimir, Theresa, all the grade twos... don't even get me started on the grade ones."
"Alright, alright!" Dahlia laughed, bumping his arm with her elbow. "I get it."
They walked on a few more steps before she asked, "So... what language was that anyway? I thought after the Collapse, only English survived."
"Old Russian," Massiah said. "Balalaika was raised by her grandmother. And her grandmother was raised the same way. It's a family thing. She speaks English decently, just not comfortably. But she understands it all right."
"That makes sense." Dahlia gave a small nod. "Weirdly makes her scarier, y'know?"
Massiah chuckled under his breath. "Yeah. She's a piece of work."
"But still that was Russian?" Dahlia said, in awe. "Never thought that's what'd it sound like."
"Well, Balalaika didn't necessarily learn a lot of Russian from her grandmother before she passed. So half of that was probably just gibberish," Massiah said.
"Ahh," Dahlia replied, turning to his fingers. "How are you handling it?"
Massiah glanced down, to his severed ring and pinky fingers on his right hand.
"Oh, it's the absolute worst. Top five most agonizing things I've ever experienced and I've had a hand in my chest before. Picking up a spoon feels like trying to juggle knives. The pain? It's not just physical, it's bone deep, soul crushing, head splitting. That's why I nearly had a heart attack when you caught that blade, because you're about to enter an elite league of suffering!"
Dahlia's eyes widened. "Wait, you're messing with me, right?"
"Wasn't it obvious?"
"No, you didn't sound sarcastic at all." She laughed. "Hold up, is that the first joke you've made since we met?"
"No... I've made jokes before."
"No, you haven't." Dahlia grinned. "And that was horrible."
"It so was not!" Massiah protested, still walking with a smirk.
"Yes it so was." She laughed again.
He glanced at her hand, voice dropping slightly. "Still sucks, though. You'll have to do a lot of stuff left-handed now."
Dahlia raised her hand to her face. "Well, guess I better start practicing."
Massiah smiled. "Yeah, keep it up and you'll be ambidextrous in no time."
She glanced at him, "Bet I'll be better at it than you."
"Yeah, yeah. Just don't go catching any more blades."
Dahlia grinned mischievously.
"No promises."